


Sky Pilot: How High Can You Fly?

by lilwitch



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, fluff too, gonna write as much fluff into this as i can, he/him pronouns for pidge, im so sorry, its temporary though, like super angsty, these boys dont want to talk about feelings they got a war to fight, this is very ansty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-04-28 16:14:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14452968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilwitch/pseuds/lilwitch
Summary: War, what is it good for?  Keith Kogane doesn't know, nor does he care. The only thing he cares about is finding his adopted brother, in the midst of a nuclear war. He runs into friends new and old like Lance, Pidge, and Hunk and has to chose between duty and family, but sometimes your family is your duty. Hard choices are made in war, will Keith and Lance face their fears and overcome the obstacles in their way? Can they find Shiro before its too late? Can they bring Shiro home?





	1. I’ll Never Be Your Chosen One.

**Author's Note:**

> HI  
> So this is the first fic I've ever posted here. I'm really nervous, but I hope you guys like it! So my plan for the chapter titles is to use song lyrics, mostly I have this one playlist on repeat while I write this. I"m already working on the second chapter, but I won't really have time to write until the semester ends. yay  
> Disclaimer: I know like nothing about the military, this is me making stuff up and what I've seen from movies and media and whatnot.
> 
> The title of the Fic is inspired by Sky Pilot by the Animals.  
> Chapter Title is from Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons
> 
> Thanks for reading!

“Who do you miss the most?” Captain Shirogane looked at me. He was handsome as ever, even if dirt was caked onto his face it could never hide his sculpted features or his kind smile. I could never forget that smile. The reverberations from the explosion were still ringing in my ear. I almost didn’t hear him. The war raged on around us, but I could only focus on the man kneeling in front of me.

“What?” With my right hand I pushed myself into an upright position, I gasped as pain erupted in my side. Captain Shirogane wrapped one of his strong hands around my bicep and pulled me up. Pain shot through my leg and I looked down and saw blood. My left arm was pretty much useless, probably broken though it had gone numb from adrenaline, so I couldn’t really tell. Tears welled up my eyes, but I blinked them away and took a deep breath. 

“I miss my mom.” Shiro chuckled. I glared at him, “What? I know its cliché, but she did her best, can't say the same thing about dad. I didn’t always show mom that I loved her, though.” I tried to smile but it turned into more of a grimace. “…and now I never will,” I said it with such finality. But it hurt to think about them, their faces were becoming less and less clear in my mind, especially my mother. I couldn’t think about them right now. This was not the time, nor the place.

Shiro got a faraway look in his eye. He had living parents, they had taken me in and I loved them for it but his family was still so far away, and we, as soldiers had no guarantee that we would return. The battlefield stretched out all around us, men fighting and dying in the trenches, but for that moment the din and chaos of war seemed so far away. If only it could stay that way. I needed silence but the ringing in my ear would not stop. Somewhere behind us, the sharp crack of a machine gun rang out. Shiro pushed me back down and ahead of us, another soldier dropped to the ground. My bad leg was throbbing, and it was the only thing I could focus on. Shiro looked torn between me and the recently fallen soldier. 

I tried to say something. I wanted to tell him to leave me, I was nothing of importance, a lowly foot soldier. The other man looked to be in worse condition than I was. I wanted to make Shiro see that we were expendable, but he was a ranked officer. He was important. He needed to survive. I could die here. I would be okay with that. As long as he lived I would be okay. Shiro’s eyes were searching mine and he only shook head fiercely and I realized I might have said some of that out loud. My face began to heat up. God, I had terrible timing. 

Shiro mumbled something under his breath that I didn’t catch but my ears weren’t working that well at the moment, so he could have been speaking normally. I pushed his arm away from me and tried to get him to leave me, but he just held on tighter and swung me onto his back. I grunted with the pain of my leg moving and felt the tears I had held back begin to fall.  
“Not today kid. This isn’t how your story ends.” We were running now. I bounced limply on his back unable to move, think or do anything except cry. I need to wipe my nose, but my face was already so dirty and bloody and little snot made no difference. More shooting broke out around us. Another bomb went off and Shiro stumbled and fell, throwing me across the dirt-packed ground several feet. I couldn’t move but I heard him scream. No. Not possible. You can’t die. I used the last of my strength to lift my head and search for Shiro. Over the blood-soaked ground, I could see his arm, my eyes raked up and down his arm searching for the rest of him. I couldn’t see his head, or chest, realization dawned on me as bile rose up in the back of my throat. It was just his arm. 

My vision was blacking out, but I could hear his harsh breathing above me. Someone was there just outside of my field of vision. 

“Shiro?” 

"Hey, are you okay?"

It didn’t sound like him. Hands pulled me onto what felt like a stretcher and through all the pain all I could think about was the sound of Shiro’s scream. He was hurt, injured trying to protect me. Another barrage of gunshots and the person who seemed to be saving me ran faster. I tried to call out to him, but my voice was gone, the only sound I was able to make was a desperate cry. My fault. If I had seen the grenade earlier, been able to move out of the way faster I wouldn’t have gotten hurt and Shiro would still have two arms, he would still be alive. No, he’s okay he’s alive he has to be. That was my last thought before I blacked out. 

When I woke up I was surprised to find I could still hear the din of battle. I was in what looked like a small medical tent. Somewhere nearby a person was doing something I couldn’t see. There were several other beds with patients in them. On my right, there were two beds that held groaning soldiers and I could see them move out of my peripheral vision. Somewhere on my left were beds where the men on them lay still and silent. I bet if I turned my head the sheet would cover their faces. With a grunt, I sat up and immediately regretted any movement. In an instant, the person in the tent was at my side. He was young, good-looking, with a twinkle in his dark ocean blue eyes. A medic judging by the patch on his army jacket and the gauze in his hand. 

He smiled at me and said, “Welcome to the world of the living. You are a trooper man.”

“I don’t feel so welcome” He laughed at that. But I wasn’t in the mood for laughter. I had to know.

“The other man near me, Captain Shirogane is he in here, is he okay? “Is he alive? I left that question unsaid. I don’t know if I could speak those words out loud. 

He stopped laughing.” The Captain is..." He dragged a hand down his face. “What I mean to say is, we don’t know where he is. The blast that nearly killed you sent him flying somewhere we couldn’t see. 

My breath stopped. My heart was pounding in my ears. I wanted to go back out and search for him but it was more likely I would go back to being unconscious and oblivious. 

“I have to find him.” I started to move the covers back when the hands of the medic stopped me.  
His hands were calloused and rough, brown and worn by years of hard work and war. Looking at them made me want to cry again. His hands shouldn’t be so hard, so stained with blood. Though my hands were probably harder and bloodier than his, I had to be no older than he was. He gently pushed me back onto the bed. 

“You are in no position to be going anywhere young man.” I scoffed at him.

“I’m older than you are.” He just shrugged. 

“You don’t know that wise guy.” This guy was starting to piss me off, but not in a bad way. 

“Medical expertise calls for bed rest. Meaning soldier, you are not to leave this bed.” He looked into my eyes and he adopted an unreadable expression. I tried to meet his gaze but couldn't stand the sympathy in his eyes. He turned around and I saw his shoulders rise and fall. When he faced my bed again he looked years older. 

“I will look into your situation. But you rest. I have other patients to tend to now.” He made to leave. His hand resting on the door flap of the small medical tent. For some reason I needed to know his name, I had to know who this kid was. How old was he, what was he doing here in this desolate warzone with those bright twinkling eyes?

I called out to him “Hey,” My voice came out hoarse, I tried again, “Hey, what’s your name?”  
He turned and said, “McClain-Espinoza, You?”  
“Kogane.”

“All right Kogane I’ll bring back news of your captain in no time.” He lifted the tent flap and was gone.

I took a deep breath to steady my racing heart. Adrenalin still pumped through my veins, but my eyes were heavy and slowly the noise of the battle faded, the pain in my entire body became numb and somehow, somehow, I fell asleep. I had a bad dream. Of course, I did.

I was running in this dream. I guess I was always running, even when I was awake. It was raining. I saw Shiro’s broken body lying on the ground just a few short feet from me. All I had to do was reach him. All I needed was to hold him and feel his pulse, make sure he was breathing. I kept running. It was like nothing was happening. Shiro’s form started to shrink and I got even more desperate. I called out to him over and over as he receded into the planes. The sound of an explosion rattled me, and I woke with a start.

The medical tent had descended into chaos. Medical staff was running around wheeling patients out of the tent and into what I presumed was a van to transport the injured to safety. At least I hoped that’s what was happening. I saw McClain in the rush and called out to him. He had a panicked look in his eye. I tried to rise to help but needle-like rivers of pain brought me sinking to the floor blinking back tears. McClain was at my side in an instant lifting me in a fireman’s carry and bodily shoving his way out of the tent. For the second time that night I felt useless as I was thrown over someone’s shoulder and carried to safety. 

We ran to an armored van outside the tent. I swept the battled field with my eyes, searching for Shiro’s body, but there was so much smoke and there were so many fallen that I couldn’t distinguish Shio from the rest. McClain wrapped an arm around my waist and hauled me onto the hard bench in the back of the truck. He didn’t move away from me and I was glad for the closeness. I needed some sort of human comfort. My best friend, my brother, was most likely dead, or still alive but barely holding on and missing an arm. He would either bleed out or be killed by a stray bullet. I had no way of knowing what would happen to him. 

“Hey,” McClain whispered in my ear,” What’s your first name? I feel weird not knowing.” I slowly raised my head to stare at him. He wasn’t looking at me, but out at the fighting, the enemy had broken through our lines of defense and was advancing quickly. We had to get out of here before their bombs and their guns caught up to us. The truck had started to move. It jostled harshly jarring my ribs and leg, leaving me gasping in pain. McClain wrapped one long arm around me and we held on to each other for dear life as our truck bounded over the open plane.

“Keith,” I whispered.

He nodded solemnly “Lance.”

I was under the assumption that we were going to our main military base here in Altea, but we were taking a different route. Maybe the Altean base was under attack? If that were the case then we were headed to a remote outpost, most likely a fortified building where we could heal and rejoin the fighting.

The van trundled along winding roads, going from bumpy dirt to smooth pavement. At one-point, Lance had decided he had taken the silence long enough and began cracking jokes. They were terrible, and I soon tuned him out. Even though this place had been besieged by war for over ten years the countryside remained miraculously untouched. The hills were covered in blossoms and trees were a bright green. Its spring, I realized suddenly. And then, Shiro would have loved to see this. 

Hours passed, and my assumption of an outpost turned out to be correct. We passed through a security checkpoint and drove up the mountain to the military outpost built into the mountain. Mount. Terrania if I recall correctly. The outpost was called Garrison Base and was a relatively safe space away from the fighting. Injured soldiers were often brought here or to more nearby field hospitals. I hadn’t realized we had been so close to the location of the base.  
Once we were parked in front of a large grey foreboding building Lance hopped out to help unload the patients and the supplies. He shot me an apologetic look and then joined the other medics. A stretcher was brought out for me and another guy, Hunk Garrett I believe, because neither of us could walk. Through the hustle and bustle of unloading, I lost sight of Lance. 

I was brought to a small but clean white room with a real bed, not a cot in one corner of the room next to a wonderful giant window and two more beds against the walls. They had large white curtains separating each bed. Hunk was placed in the second bed, on the other side of the room. I desperately hoped for the window bed. Even as I thought that a young man walked over a plopped himself down on the window bed. He looked as though he had been here awhile. There was a large bandage on his arm leading up, if I had to guess, to his chest.

After they got us settled in our beds I sat down, and the weight of the last 24 hours settled on me. It was so heavy I nearly cried. Suddenly thoughts of Shiro were coming back to me. Memories, little snippets of his life. The two of us playing in his front yard, going to school together, enlisting in the military, watching him grow further and further away from me, while I went off to complete my dream of being a pilot. I was exhausted and ill-equipped to deal with my emotional turmoil. I drifted off to sleep with the help of some sleeping pills from a friendly nurse and prayed for good dreams. What I got instead was worse. 

I was lying on the ground, Shiro was hovering over me. An explosion rocked the world and he was thrown far away. Thunder roared in my ears. I screamed his name and reached for his hand. When I pulled him toward me I realized I was only holding his arm. I threw it from me in disgust and horror and called for him again. And again, and again. I scrambled to my feet, searching for him, screaming my voice raw.

Another voice, one I did not recognize cut through my cloudy haze of panic. It sounded young and scared. I slowly began to realize that my shoulder was being shaken by the small young man with the bandage on his arm. He was looking at me with a worried expression, his big brown eyes wide. He jumped back when opened my eyes. I tried to remember his name, but I couldn’t. 

“I- Uh I’m sorry,” he stammered, “you were just, uh screaming in your sleep.” He leaned down peering at me. “Did you say, Shiro?”

I blinked and then sat up quickly, too quickly I accidentally slammed my head on the kid’s forehead. He yelped and shoved me back down. I wanted to ask if he knew Shiro but I couldn’t seem to say his name out loud without crying.

“You shouldn’t be moving; your ribs are broken, and your leg is full of shrapnel.” I groaned, and lights danced in front of my eyes.

“Thanks, “I said dryly,” I hadn’t noticed.” 

“Ah, sarcasm, I had heard soldiers from the front lines were severely lacking in it.” But he smiled, and his eyes glinted mischievously.  
“You talk as though you aren’t on the front lines” 

“Well, I’m an intelligence officer. My name is Pidge Gunderson.” Pidge ran a hand through his tousled mouse brown hair. “My brother, Matt, was on the frontlines working as a spy. He's sarcastic. He went MIA.” He glanced up at my face briefly to see how I was doing. Pidge’s eyes were filled with tears, but he didn’t let them fall. This kid had a quiet strength about him that I admired. 

I, however, had been taking slow measured breaths to try and get my heart rate down. I could feel my ears buzzing and the room around me shrinking, the sounds of battle hadn’t quieted, and for a moment I was sure they never would. 

Pidge took my face in his hands and turned it toward him. I didn’t immediately jerk away out of pure shock. Once up close I saw how young he really was, a round face with large intelligent brown eyes and thick worried eyebrows, to top it all off a mop of mousy brown hair. He didn’t seem to have the war living in his eyes like I knew I did, like Lance did, like Shiro did.  
“What was your dream about?” 

“I don’t remember.” I was lying, I could still see in perfect detail Shiro’s limp body, his arm in my hand not attached to his shoulder. The smell of blood filled my nostrils.

“Hey.” He spoke softly and returned me to our little hospital room. 

“I just can’t talk about it.” Pidge nodded and released my face. 

“My mother used to say that if you let problems build up inside of you, it becomes like a clogged pipe, filled to bursting. One day, they will give out.” 

“Well, my brother used to say, ‘patience yields focus, Keith’”. I smiled. 

Pidge patted me gently on the shoulder. He jumped up and stretched his arms way above his head making a satisfied noise when his back popped. He smiled at me and asked me to join him. I begrudgingly excepted. So that morning, Pidge, a young intelligence officer and me and the other man brought in with me Hunk, did light morning exercises -- taking care to not injure ourselves any further -- to a hip beat playing on the old radio in our room voiced by some young famous actress I did not know the name of. 

Weeks passed in relative peace. I woke up every morning at five-thirty to stretch. As soon as my leg healed, surgery to remove the shrapnel had kept me bedridden for over two weeks and I was getting antsy, I hit the training deck. I took extra care not to push myself too far, my ribs couldn’t take that much strain and it was a pain in the neck to deal with not being able to breathe properly. I would then head to the mess hall for lunch, eat with Hunk who turned out to be the sweetest guy in the whole outpost, then find a quiet corner where I could read intelligence reports about missing persons and search the computer for recent news of Captain Shirogane. After dinner, Lance would usually find me tucked into a chair in the library and haul me back to my room complaining that I was never going to heal properly if I didn’t rest until I was actually well again. My leg had mostly healed it was my broken ribs that continued to bother me. Lance made sure to come to each of my sessions after he learned I was doing training. He had been exasperated and berated me about proper patient procedure for an entire day. I wonder who told him, probably from Pidge that nosy bastard. He had taken it upon himself after the first day, to help me or annoy me to death or become my friend. I didn’t know how to handle any of those options, so I avoided him as much as I could. I did manage to be present for his celebratory bandage removal dance though. I still dreamt of Shiro at night, but he was always far away, and I never could get to him. I began to take sleeping pills, best not to dream. 

Lance had also apparently decided we were friends. He would find me whenever he had spare time. Which to me seemed to be all the time. I would see him at meals, we would eat with Pidge and Hunk from our room. Lance and Hunk went way back to their Garrison days as cadets. Lance had mentioned something about being a cargo pilot with Hunk as his engineer but when I asked him more about it he wouldn’t talk. I wondered how I had not run into them during my own Garrison days, though it might have to do something with my being in Fighter class. They had gone through thick and thin together and Hunk would often joke that Lance had dragged him to war, and across the world, when was Lance going to drag him all the way up to space.

“One day, buddy, one day” Lance nodded solemnly. Hunk had laughed heartily at that before going very quiet and excusing himself. As he ran out the door I saw tears in his eyes.

“Hunk’s, a little shell-shocked. “Lance explained to me one afternoon as we sat side by side on the library floor. The sunlight was lighting up Lance's deep brown hair a fiery red and I hadn’t been able to look away for the last couple of seconds. He wasn’t looking at me, so I could get a good look at him. He smiled sadly to himself, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Hunk, He’s an engineer, not made for the battlefield.” Lance shrugged and raised his hands toward the ceiling as if he was apologizing, “I mean he’s super strong and has great biceps, but the guy doesn’t have the stomach for murder or seeing other people die.” He looked at me. His eyes were bright with tears and my breath caught in my throat. 

“If he wasn’t in the fighting then what happened?”

“His family was supposed to be safe. Hunk had plans to join them soon. But before they could make contact, the enemy bombed their hideout, probably thinking it was a military, not a civilian set up. Or maybe they knew exactly what they were doing.” I saw in his eyes an anger, a resentment I had not seen before. Even in the field, surrounded by dead and dying soldiers, Lance managed to keep his spirits up. But here, away from the fighting, he was probably thinking of his own family, hopefully still safe and alive.

I didn’t have that luxury, my father had left me as a babe in arms, not old enough to understand family, or how much it would hurt not to have one. Lance sighed and ran a hand down his face. That seemed to be his thing for stress. “Hunk was working, repairing planes and tanks and wasn’t there to help. And then that workshop got bombed, that’s how he was hurt so badly. He hasn’t said anything to me, but I think he feels responsible for his moms’ deaths.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. It’s called survivors guilt asshole.” Lance cringed when he realized what he’d said. “Uhm sorry man, I didn’t mean—You -- but I’m sure we’ll find Shiro. You couldn’t have done anything, you were hurt pretty bad, coulda died yourself.” 

“I am going to find Shiro, Lance, it’s just taking me a while to heal, and then I will really get to look for him.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and even though I wanted to throw it off, I didn’t. I sat there and accepted his comfort. Lance reached over and wiped a tear from my face. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. 

He was too nice, this was too much kindness, I didn’t deserve. I was the pilot who didn’t have the guts to fly in battle, I was the headstrong idiot who even though he passed his simulations and real-world tests with flying colors, dropped out at the last second and enlisted in the ground forces when he heard his brother was being sent overseas on the ground. I could barely even control my own feelings, I was weak and soft and the walls I had kept up so easily in my cadet days were crumbling down all around me, faster than I could repair them and it scared me. A few short months and this man had broken through my defenses and even built himself a door. 

I slapped his hand away from my face and he made an indignant noise. I decided I’d had enough of mushy feels and was ready to hit the training deck. My ribs were healing nicely, and I ached for a good workout.

“Well, if that’s how you are going to be today I’ll leave you to cry your heart out on the floor in the library.” He stood and grinned at me, “if you need me you know where to find me.”

“Actually,” With his help, I stood and waved my hand the door, “I wanted to get some training in before dinner. Care to join me?”

Before I knew it, we were on the training deck stretching and programming the computer to spar with us. I had hoped for a serious session, but one look at Lance’s face told me he had other plans. After a few rounds with the easiest levels, Lance made the robot march on command and salute him as if he were a general. Pidge entered after some time to tell us we had missed dinner and that he could program the training bot to do a whole lot more than salute on command. This left Lance feeling stiffed of his rightful glory as general of the robot and the two began bickering about who could do the better job. They let me judge and when I ruled on Pidge’s behalf Lance launched into a tirade saying he was being betrayed by the only one who had yet to call him 'friend'. This wasn’t true I had been thinking of him as a friend for a while, though I realized I may not have said it out loud. After a surprisingly long and thought-provoking soliloquy about love lost and betrayal and the poem the witches from the Scottish play sing over the cauldron, Lance fell to the ground and pulled me close by my shirt collar

“ Et Tu Brute?”

“Wrong play, smartass.” With a yank on my shirt, he dragged me down until he and I were entangled on the floor. A beat or two passed. I stared down at Lance, my face was beet red and his mouth was open in a comical ‘o’. I was effectively straddling him and didn’t seem to have it in me to move. Pidge broke the silence with a cackle and a sound suspiciously like a camera. I got off of him in a hurry apologizing and trying to make my face stop being red. It did not work much to Pidge’s evil delight. One day I’ll find out what makes that gremlin tick because from where I stand right now he is the embodiment of chaos. Lance was trying his hardest to appear calm and collected but Pidge showed him his camera with all of the pictures of the two of us and bolted from the room. Lance groaned loudly and turned to me. 

“Don’t go falling in love with me now. I know I’m irresistible, do you?” I stared at him trying to comprehend if he’d done it on purpose or had just slipped up. Lance clamped his mouth shut and with that Lance marched out the door playing for all the world affronted and angry. I knew better. As soon as he was out of the room I bust out laughing. 

That evening I went to bed early. My search for Shiro could wait one more day. I needed sleep. I was so absorbed in going to bed early that I forgot to take the sleeping pills that kept my dreams at bay. I only realized it when I was half asleep and in no mood for moving. 

That night the dreams came. Over and over Shiro would fall and over and over I would crawl to his side only to find his disembodied arm. The same dream I’d been having since the first day, only this time when I looked at his arm it was made of metal and glowing a sickly looking purple. The smoke from bombs turned purple as well revealing humanoid shapes. I tried to make out the shapes in the distance, but I could only make out glowing yellow eyes. I jolted awake screaming Shiro’s name.

Pidge was by my bedside in an instant. I was covered in a sheen of sweat, over my whole body. Pidge took my large damp hand in one of his smaller ones and squeezed. He had a surprisingly strong grip. His presence helped but my heart wasn’t slowing down, I needed air. 

“Hey” he whispered,” It’s been a while since you’ve dreamt of him, or at least woken up screaming.” He gave my hand another squeeze. 

I gulped in air and shook my head “I forgot the sleeping pills last night.”

“Do you need me to get Lance?” Pidge whispered.

My head snapped up at the mention of him. “What? Why?”  
“Well he’s a medic, and you need him.” Pidge smiled at my confused expression, “The both of you are so dense I swear to god.” He let my hand go and made his way over to the door, “I’ll be right back.” With that, he was gone. 

A stirring across the room startled me and I jumped.

“Hunk?” I called, cursing the scared squeak in my voice.

“Yeah, hey, what happened you were screaming?” Hunk made his way over to my bed carefully. “Bad dream?” 

“The worst.”

“I know that feeling.” Hunk opened his arms, gesturing for a hug. I knew better than to refuse one of Hunk’s hugs. In Hunk’s arms the problems of the world melted away, the war felt years away and for the first time that night, I felt safe.

Lance and Pidge came back soon after. Lance brought sleeping pills and a glass of water with him, he sat at one side of my bed, Hunk on the other side and Pidge in the center with me leaning against the headboard. We talked for hours and before I knew it, morning light had seeped through the curtains and I was waking up in someone’s arms. 

I blinked slowly taking in the form beside me. I traced my hand up the long arm, reaching his neck and then fingertips lightly padding his chin, and then cheek and dragging over his nose. Lance looks so peaceful and quiet when he was sleeping. I was barely aware of what I was doing but I was not about to stop. My thumb brushed over his lip and it caught on the end and bounced back into place. He stirred and let out a breath. His arm tightened around my waist. Suddenly realizing the implications of whatever was happening right here I became aware of my heart thudding in my chest so loud I could swear the whole compound could hear it. I couldn’t be here any longer. I had to get out from under his arms, but I didn’t move. I knew if I moved he would wake up and question why we had apparently slept tangled together on my bed last night. I wasn’t ready to face his confusion and disgust at sleeping with another man. I couldn’t face that. I also couldn’t wait for him to wake up. So, I lay there trying to figure a way out of this situation. I didn’t even realize that it had been the first night since losing Shiro that I had gotten a good night’s rest, with no bad dreams whatsoever. 

Lance blinked himself wake groggily and I could see every eyelash move. When he opened his eyes, I was taken aback by how blue they were and how nicely they complimented his golden-brown skin tone. His hair fell haphazardly across his forehead, I resisted the urge to bush it away. Where were all these thoughts coming from, since when did I get so romantic? I was becoming laughable. 

“Hey what time is it?” Lance whispered. He smiled sleepily and pushed himself into a sitting position. “Sleep well?”  
I gulped. “Yeah, first time in ages. You?” He peered down at me.

“I think I like this arrangement. You make a good cuddle buddy, never would have guessed my rival was so good at cuddling.” 

Rival? What was he talking about? I must have made a befuddled expression because Lance laughed and pointed at me. “I’m talking about you, samurai.” 

I chuckled and hauled myself up to look him in the eye. “Where did samurai come from huh? Is it 'cause I’m Asian?” Lance made a noise like a strangled cow and waved his hands at me.  
“No, no! Because you know all about knives and like stabby things so…samurai.” He looked down, “I’m bad at nicknames, so from the bottom of my heart, my bad.”

I laughed at that,” Okay, I accept your apology, sharpshooter” Lance’s head shot up, the look on his face was priceless. I tried to commit his happy face to memory. Who knew how long we would be happy, we were at war after all.

Later that day, a summons called me to the main office. It was located inside the central building and at the end of a long dark corridor. I wondered if I was being summoned to my death. Once I reached the office I noticed several familiar faces. Hunk and Pidge looked grim and Lance was saying something to the man behind the desk. Commander Iverson. I took a few measured breaths to steady myself and opened the door.

“Ahh, Mr. Kogane, so glad you could join us.” Iverson beckoned me forward. His office was large with a sturdy mahogany desk and many filing cabinets and bookshelves full of confidential information. How I had wished to get my hands on his classified missing person's reports. 

Hunk gave me a small smile and Pidge nodded at me. Lance waved me to the seat next to him. Feeling oddly proud of being asked to sit next to Lance by Lance I sat. 

Iverson cleared his throat. Back to business. 

“As you all know, our enemy has contacts outside of our reach, supplying them with weapons and upgraded technology that outmatches us in almost every way. They have advanced guns, and ships and so the balance shifts, in their favor. We need to know who they know and how they are getting technology light years ahead of ours, or anything we have ever seen before.” I had not heard of this, but I figured Iverson knew what he was talking about.

“What does that mean for us?” Lance raised his hand a little too late. Iverson glowered at him and Lance slowly put his hand back down. 

“What this means McClain, is that we are putting an elite team together to find out this information. Don’t make me chose someone else.” Iverson looked at me and linked his fingers underneath his chin, his elbows resting on his desk. “Kogane you are the best pilot of your generation. You and McClain will pilot two ships, one cargo, one fighter to search for this base and find this enemy supplier. Kogane, we are counting on you in the fighter to be the eyes and ears of the cargo ship piloted by McClain.” For some reason at hearing that he would fly the cargo ship, Lance’s eyes hardened. 

“You will be undercover as an enemy supply ship. Garrett, you and Gunderson will be with McClain and Kogane respectively as copilots as well as to repair the ships and act as navigators. Once you reach your objective you will come together as one team and infiltrate the enemy base.” Iverson stood and walked over to his large wall map I had only just noticed. Iverson took out a laser pointer and I turned to Lance and rolled my eyes toward Iverson and his laser pointer, but Lance gave me an odd cold look. I glanced away quickly, unsettled by his sudden change in attitude. 

“This is your route, it would be ideal to stick to this course but make changes if need be.” Iverson dragged his pointed along a river and into the enemy territory, going over several towns and villages. “This mission is of utmost importance if you do not figure out where the enemy is getting these weapons we will all die.” Iverson slammed the pointer down on his desk for emphasis, “You four men must sneak behind enemy lines and bring back our salvation. We will lose this war without this information, understood?” He glared down at us, holding our attention. 

“Keith Kogane, we are counting on you. You are the only one able to pilot the S-Class fighter. Don’t let us down.” Iverson’s eyes bored into me. 

I wanted to object. I wasn’t the ‘chosen’ one, that was Shiro, he was a great pilot, the best soldier of his generation. If only Shiro were here, I thought desperately. There was no way I could fly that plane, it had been too long. I tried to say something, but my jaw wouldn’t move. Lance shot me a worried look but turned away as soon as I looked at him. My heart sank like lead into my stomach.

“Dismissed.”

The four of us stood and saluted. 

“Yes, Sir!”


	2. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey begins! Lance takes the helm and soon the mission is underway. But can they track the enemy down or will the enemy find them first?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So second chapter! lots of bonding moments, some angst I'm sorry in advance, some action.  
> still, I should probably research like military tactics but I did look up interesting stuff about planes so that was fun.

Resignation settled in my belly like an anchor sinking to the ocean floor. The whirlwind of packing and training didn’t allow me much time to think. Keith and I were told to pack as light as possible and to train in the planes we would be using. I waited too long to explain my reaction so each passing day we didn’t talk bore a deeper hole in my chest. I couldn’t stand to look at his hurt expression when he saw me in the mess hall or during training. I avoided him as much as I could, but I knew I would have to come clean before we left on the mission. We couldn’t risk being compromised from the inside. It was much too dangerous.  
My plane was a clunky cargo ship, painted with a chipped coat of deep blue, emblazoned with the enemy logo, a strange symbol which looked like two prongs sticking out of Voldemort’s nose and two more on the bottom. She was certainly not glamorous, but she would be reliable, that I could see. She was large, boxy looking, there was a large bay stuffed with boxes and crates of supplies. I made sure to check up on the engines, because from my experience with cargo ships they tended to be faulty. Hunk was there making adjustments and complaining about shoddy workmanship, I was suddenly grateful he would be my copilot. I left Hunk to his devices and climbed into the cockpit, intent on checking out what I would be working with. I checked her control panel and noticed that the dials were pretty outdated. I hadn’t exactly kept up with the latest flight technology, but even our cargo ships had updated designs. I guess the Galra higher-ups didn’t care about their cargo pilots. Typical of them, really, a fascist state wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the working class.   
Just as I had finished my check-up, Keith entered the hanger. From far away I couldn’t tell what his expression was, but his crossed arms and hunched posture told me he wasn’t happy. I watched from the cockpit of Blue, as I had so lovingly coined my ship, as Keith made his way over to the fighter jet in the back of the hanger. His ship was much smaller than mine, a sleek black and red aerodynamic design. Sharp wings, a pointy nose, and weapons decorated its outer shell. Inside I knew it would be just a small galley and the cockpit. My fingers twitched on the toggle of my own ship. I had wanted to fly so badly, now I was given the chance, even if it wasn’t the plane I had hoped to fly. I watched as Keith walked the perimeter of the jet tracing a hand along the nose. He looked calm, but he held himself in a tense, unsure of himself way. His bad mood was probably my fault. I had been avoiding him for a little over a week. Now I was just avoiding my problems.   
Hunk chose that moment to grace me with his presence. I sighed and spun in my chair to face his lecture. He smiled at me and took a seat in his copilot place.   
“Keith’s here”  
“I saw.”  
Hunk shot me a look “Aren’t you gonna talk to him?”   
“Pfft,” I sputtered, “No why would I need to do that we are cool, totally tubular.”  
Hunk rolled his eyes, “Right and that’s why Keith has been brooding all over the place and you haven’t so much as looked at each other this past couple of days.”  
I dragged a hand down my face. “Hunk you know how I feel about piloting cargo vessels.”  
“Yeah, but does Keith know that?”  
“No.”  
“So talk to him, It’s not his fault if anything blame Iverson.” Hunk placed his large, warm brown hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. “You and Keith need to work out your emotional shit now before the mission so we don’t get distracted. Lance, if you are the most stubborn person I’ve met he’s easily the second most stubborn, so go and tell him why you reacted the way you did.” Hunk was such a good friend, so kind and patient. I really wanted to cry right then, but as that would ruin my cool guy reputation I refrained.  
“Cool, cool cool, cool,” I mumbled and dragged a hand down my face.  
We were to set off in two weeks. I had two weeks to fix things with Keith. Great. I approached him right before take-off, but my lousy explanation was brushed off and I watched, defeated, as Keith closed himself from me. All my work to break through his walls since I had dragged him off of that far off battlefield crumbled around me.  
The time had come to depart. Pidge and I loaded up our packs with supplies and clothes and snacks. Hunk and Keith were preparing for take-off. I handed my pack to Pidge and told him I needed to run through pre-flight checks. Keith and I had to connect our audio sets, so we could communicate properly. Two hours of last-minute checks and packing we were prepped and ready to fly. Pidge sat tensely next to me gripping his notebook tightly. I probably looked equally as anxious. With well wishes from the hanger crew and Iverson orders ringing in our ears, Keith and I started our planes down the runway.  
We took off one after the other. This journey wasn’t going to be easy. But we soon learned it was going to be very dull.   
The first few hours of flight consisted of us chatting through the supposedly only for actual flight communication headsets. Keith was unresponsive to my attempts to break the wall of ice between us with jokes and quips. Hunk would chime in and the conversation would fly off in other directions, but I found myself circling back to Keith. His silence screamed louder than any words. I was going to explode if we didn’t work this tension out between us soon.  
That night we docked at a port town on the border of Galra territory, it wasn’t exactly friendly, but the people of the town were not for Altea or Galra they were neutral, so we were relatively safe. Pidge, Hunk, and Keith loaded up Blue with the supplies while I negotiated a room for us as well as hot meals. I threw in the few coins I had as well. If only our military cared enough to give us money for lodgings. I would later learn Hunk had the allowances and he had just wanted to watch me squirm. Traitor.  
Soon we were fed and washed. The bathroom had been a lucky surprise. As army boys we were used to dirt, but it felt so refreshing to be clean again. Pidge disappeared when we went to bath together, maybe he didn’t want to bathe with us, I certainly was regretting agreeing to a group bath when Keith came out of the room wearing only a towel. Hunk cast me many a shady look and I pretended the heat from the bath was getting to me and escaped. I took refuge in our room. I had my facial creams which I applied generously to my poor dry face and changed into my pajamas for bed. Hunk came in shortly after, completely naked and dripping bathwater all over the floor, and generally causing a ruckus. He seemed to enjoy he newfound ability to make Keith and I squirm. He came too close to my bedroll and I squealed and pushed his legs away from me. Keith was trying to find Hunk a towel while not being able to look quite at him, his face beet red. Hunk was handsome sure, and he was built like a truck but seeing him naked wasn’t on my list of things I wanted from him. Pidge entered in the middle of the commotion with a wet head. I gave him a curious look, as he had been absent from the bathhouse, but Hunks aversion to towels was taking priority. Eventually Hunk dressed, and he and Pidge lay out their own bedrolls and were soon fast asleep. I was nearly asleep when the creak of the hardwood floor woke me. I saw Keith sneaking as quietly as he could out the door, I couldn’t read his face, but I was suddenly worried. I followed him out the building.   
What the hell was I doing? I tripped over a piece of wood and Keith turned around at the loud clatter. Panicking I hid behind a dumpster. Keith’s face appeared above me a few seconds later.

“Hey,” I said, for lack of a better word. Keith shot me a look of exasperation.   
“I know what you are going to say, Lance,” I stood up and made a show of brushing off my mud-stained pants. Drat. Keith folded his arms across his chest and glared a challenge at me. I nearly gave in to his antagonizing look but I shook my head, I was here to apologize not start a new fight. Besides under the glare, I could see the hurt in his eyes.  
“Why are you following me?” Keith glared at me, I looked down at my shoes. Words failed me for a few seconds.  
“Well since you are here,” Keith shifted from foot to foot, then looked up at me,” I want to apologize.”  
I stared at him. For a beat, we stood there staring at each other. He must have read my sheer look of shock and confusion because he kept going, his voice growing faster, his words becoming more tangled, “It’s, um, well. You wanted to be the fighter, right? I mean I saw you looking at my plane it was pretty obvious.” He studied his shoes,” I don’t really know why that made you mad and I know we were in the same year at the Garrison but um those simulations are hard, and I only got passed them with luck my first sight of air battle I panicked and screwed up so I dropped out. You are so good, like I’m not sure how you got where you are but like, maybe it wasn’t mean to be for the pilot stuff but I’m sure you a good pilot, I mean it was the same lessons basically and ---” I put a hand on his chest. He snapped his mouth shut.  
“I’ve never heard you talk that much. Wow” I sighed and ran my hand down my face. “Look I was angry because Iverson has underestimated me from the beginning. He always…” I trailed off. “Well, I guess it’s not important. I’m a cargo pilot. You are a genuine fighter pilot, you just need to conquer your nerves. Happens to the best of us. I’m sorry I shut you out, I was trying to run away from my problems instead of head-on, like you. Maybe I should take a page from your book sometimes.”  
I tried to smile at him.   
“Thanks for telling me.”  
“You know, talking about things helps. Instead of like, you know, brooding.” Keith guffawed loudly and the tension that had grown like a thick sheet of glass between us broke. Relief flooded through my being. Keith and I continued talking as we made our way back to the room. Pidge and Hunk were sound asleep, the candle we had for light still burning, Jesus without me these guys would burn the place down.   
The next day we started out early. We cleaned up, finished our transaction with the clerk, and got the hell out of dodge. Keith and I started up with our usual banter, Pidge joining in occasionally, I had missed this, our easy flow. Hunk shot me a knowing look and I gave him a coy wink in return.  
Several hours of flying later, it was time to stop and drop off the shipment of weapons and supplies for our enemy. Pidge and Hunk had devised a plan to prevent the enemy from getting more weapons. While we had them in our possession, Pidge studied them and found weakness which he would point out to Hunk and between the two of them they would disarm the most dangerous. The guns and regular shipment items like clothes and food were left alone, only a few tracking devices planted so we could track where they ended up. 

We found a routine. We would fly for several hours, tracking the shipments we had sent out, our goal to find the base where the weapons were kept. Once we had found the package that would take us directly there we set out close on its tail. We poured over the schematics drawn up by Pidge trying to find a weakness in the defense of the Galra forces. At night we would land and take shelter. Hunk would sometimes try to improve the rations we had taken from our base with his own flair, but it was still beans and bread. Not much can be said about it. Keith and I would travel into the nearest towns and talk to locals, trying to get information. However, we did not look Galran at all so the locals were suspect to confide in us.

After a week of travel, we found the base. The package had arrived and now we had coordinates. We had been extraordinarily lucky to not get caught beforehand and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was too easy, that something wasn’t right. I hate it when I don’t listen to my gut. Pidge and Hunk relayed the coordinates to Iverson and he ordered us to rendezvous with the main fleet at the enemy hideout. Keith pulled me aside after we heard the message.  
“I don’t trust these coordinates. I don’t know but it feels like a trap.” His grip on my arm tightened.  
“I have the same feeling, it was too easy. But we have orders to go there now.” I carefully extracted myself from his grasp and put a hand over his. His hands were smaller than mine but more callused and rough looking, he definitely did not use lotion. I had an urge to rub my thumb over his knuckles and squeeze his hand. I quelled it quickly.   
A few Hours later we were en route to the enemy. My heart was jumping to my throat and I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. Blue was flying steadily, and I was suddenly worried I wouldn’t be able to do anything in a cargo ship. I would be dead weight.   
We met up with Iverson who called Hunk and Pidge down from our lanes to coordinate the attack from the ground. As Keith and I took off again a fleet of enemy bombers descended on us and chaos broke out. Keith streaked away in his sleek fighter and I envied his speed. I performed evasive maneuvers, but Blue wasn’t meant for battle. I could hear Iverson screaming in my ear. Something about my cargo being important, that was all I heard before a huge explosion rocked me in my chair, slamming my head into the console board in front of me.  
I blacked out. 

The air was thick with the smell of smoke, gasoline, and blood. I woke with a start, blood rushing to my head. I felt slow and sluggish, unable to move. I coughed and tried to focus my vision. In my ears I could hear the buzzing of other aircraft around me, I wasn’t in a good enough state to decipher friend from foe. My harness cut into my neck painfully. Slowly I began to hear my team calling in my earpiece.   
“Blue Lion do you copy?” came a voice, one so familiar and so grounding, “Blue lion do you copy?” Hunk called again sounding more desperate. I gave a weak cough and heard several sighs on the other end. I shifted in my seat and felt my arm and leg erupt in pain. I looked down and saw I was covered in blood. Because of course, I was. My arm was pinned down to my seat armrest by a piece of what looked like enemy fuselage. It had broken through my ship, just a small piece, but one that might put me and my plane out of commission. I reached up and flicked my status report. Panic settled in the bottom of my stomach, kind of like the feeling you get when you jump in a descending elevator.  
“Hey Blue,” I whispered, “you’re such a good girl, we are gonna get through this, Hunk’s gonna repair you, you’ll be right as rain in a few ticks.”   
I couldn’t say the same about myself. Unfortunately, the feeling had started to come back to my body, first my arm and then my leg, my ribs were sore as well. Pain coursed through my body, but I fought to ignore it. I had to get out of here. I flicked another switch and then checked my height gage. Crap. I was losing altitude at an alarming rate. With only one arm I wasn’t sure if I would be able to fly. I thought about the ejection booster seat, but then one glance and the fuselage lodged in my arm and to my top control panel I thought better of it. I would like to have an arm thank you very much. I looked at my altitude marker again.   
5,000 feet, then it dropped to 2,000 feet. Soon I would be a grease spot in some godforsaken alien planet. I did not like the sound of that one bit. I reached up yet again and turned on my distress signal. The air in the cockpit was getting thicker, and smoke filled my lungs. My best guess was that something had caught fire in the engines. They weren’t meant to be in a firefight after all so certain fire safety precautions usually taken for fight class ships were not taken with cargo transporters. Just my luck. The smoke was getting darker and I was struggling to breathe. I checked my altitude gauge again 500 feet. Plan B wasn’t sounding so bad.  
I gave a shaky sigh that turned into a sob. I did not want to fall to my death, or die in a fiery explosion, or have my arm ripped off.   
In my headpiece, Keith’s voice cut through the din,   
“Hey, Lance,” He sounded worried, “You’ll make it,”  
“Hey, Keith,” I echoed back, “I was right, it was a trap.”  
“We were both right, too bad I’m going to take all the credit, how would you like that, Lance?”  
“Don’t you dare, flyboy.” I broke into a fit of coughing and Keith on the other end made a worried noise.   
“Pidge is making a makeshift harpoon right now, we are going to get you out of there.” Keith said.  
I began pushing at the piece of fuselage, trying to free my arm, it was no use. I might actually have to rip my arm off.   
No, I croaked, “You guys have the intel, that’s what’s important and besides at this rate a harpoon will do you no good, my engines are on fire and any more extraneous shaking could make the ship explode and you guys will be too close to me. I can’t let you die trying to save me, Keith, that’s not how this works. You can’t be the hero Keith, leave that to the experts.” Rivals, huh, I guess I finally admit defeat, even though as of late we had been closer than we had ever been, maybe if I survived we could call each other friend, or more.  
I heard what sounded like a sob on the other end. My stomach twisted.  
I closed my eyes and thought of my mother, my siblings, my friends, Keith. I couldn’t stop thinking about Keith not even when I was about to die. So much for forced rivalry. I checked my altitude again, 200 feet. On the coms, I heard Pidge and Hunk panicking, Maybe Iverson as well. I was reenergized to pull my arm out, it began to loosen sending excruciating pain coursing through my body. I screamed. On the other line, my teammates began screaming my name.   
“Guys,” I gasped they stopped shouting “Hey you beautiful tech nerds, I love you never stop doing what you do, And Keith? When you find Shiro tell him—

The last thing I heard was my friends screaming my name in my ears like a chant, Lance, Lance, Lance, Lance.  
Tears traced clean tracks down my sooty cheeks. I felt the cockpit being enveloped in flames. I used the last of my strength to hit the eject button, I could only hope it was enough, my arm might not be loose enough to allow me to eject the seat. I pressed the button, nothing happened. Panic set in. 100 feet. I slammed my hand on the eject button again and felt it give. My Blue hit the ground, her hull cracking and bursting into flames. 

Oh Blue, I’m so sorry girl.


End file.
